[The Nation] If only Hollywood kept up with Streep

Without mentioning Donald Trump’s name, the eminent American actress Meryl Streep savaged the incoming president during Sunday’s Golden Globes awards telecast, seen by millions. She railed at him for mocking the motions of a physically disabled New York Times reporter at one of his a campaign rallies last year. “This instinct to humiliate, when it’s modeled by someone in the public platform, by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody’s life, because it kind of gives permission for other

Jan. 12, 2017

[Other view] Questions for Jeff Sessions

The questions raised by President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, center not on his ideology but on his priorities.One of the most conservative members of the Senate, representing one of the nation’s most conservative states, Sessions can be expected to be faithful to conservative orthodoxy. The issue is how he will choose to deploy the vast resources of the department known as the world’s largest law firm, with more than 10,000 lawyers. Three po

Jan. 11, 2017

[David Ignatius ] The country needs to know the extent of Russian meddling

The intelligence community’s allegation that Russia intervened covertly in the 2016 election describes a significant assault on US democracy. The country needs to know more: The charge needs to be followed up with an independent investigation that continues after Donald Trump becomes president on Jan. 20. The US Congress should commit now to such a bipartisan inquiry. If there’s a possibility that US laws were violated by the Russian political attack, the FBI and the US Justice Department should

Jan. 11, 2017

[Ana Palacio] The next world order

The annus horribilis of 2016 is behind us now. But its low points -- the United Kingdom’s vote to leave the European Union, the election of Donald Trump as US president, the ongoing atrocities in Syria -- were merely symptoms of a process of dissolution of the liberal rules-based global system that began long before. Unfortunately, those symptoms are now accelerating the system’s decline.For years, the liberal order has been under strain. Perhaps most obvious, there has been a lack of progress i

Jan. 11, 2017

[Chicago Tribune] Now, the hangover: Rising interest costs will give taxpayers many headaches

Running up debt, like partying hard on Saturday night, can be great fun. But a late night with lots of cocktails makes for a miserable Sunday morning. Over the past few years, though, the United States government has been able to binge freely without suffering hangovers. That is about to change, with a vengeance.　Since 2007, when the Great Recession hit, the federal budget has been even more out of balance than it was in the preceding years. In the years since, the national debt -- that is, the

Jan. 11, 2017

[Other View] A new attack on women’s right to choose

So far the new Republican Congress has proved better at identifying things it doesn’t like -- Obamacare, for example, or an independent ethics office -- than actually getting rid of them. On one issue, however, Congress may yet get its way: abortion.　Last week a House panel issued a report recommending that the federal government restrict or end medical science performed with human fetal tissue. With a Republican majority in Congress and a staunch abortion opponent about to take over the Departm

Jan. 10, 2017

[Chicago Tribune] For better and worse, the Trump Twitter presidency

It was Jan. 3, the first official workday of the new year, and Donald Trump was busy in his role as president-elect of the United States -- on Twitter. His typed outbursts for the day included: A threat to punish General Motors with an import tax for building cars in Mexico. A slap down of House Republicans for playing politics on ethics. An insinuation that America’s intelligence agencies are not fully trustworthy.Yes, on just one head-spinning Tuesday in early January the president-elect used

Jan. 10, 2017

[Heather Moore] All aboard the vegan revolution

It’s time for a vegan revolution. I mean, resolution. Every New Year, countless people resolve to lose weight and eat healthfully but many find themselves no thinner -- or healthier -- in July than they were in January. Perhaps this year, everyone should put some stock in the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics’ new position paper on vegetarian and vegan eating, and resolve to ditch meat, eggs and dairy foods.The updated paper, which was published in December, confirms that wholesome vegan foods

Jan. 10, 2017

[Michael Schuman] How China can stop Trumpism

At a recent forum, China’s Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao warned that a “zero-sum” mentality in economic relations between the US and China hurts both countries. He’s right: Rising protectionism, of the kind favored by President-elect Donald Trump, is a danger to the still-sputtering global economy. What China doesn’t yet accept is that much of the ire against free trade spreading around the world is a consequence of its own policies. If it wants to curtail the rise of protectionism, it shou

Jan. 10, 2017

[Other view] Everybody loses in Trump’s war on intelligence agencies

On Thursday, the US intelligence community struck back. Not at Russia, which it accuses of hacking the Democratic National Committee to destabilize American democracy and swing the 2016 presidential race, but at President-elect Donald Trump, whose recent tweets have called into question not just the agencies’ findings but their competence.It’s entirely appropriate, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told a Senate committee, for the president to express a “healthy skepticism” about i

Jan. 9, 2017

[Pittsburgh Post-Gazette] The China game: The other global power is playing coy for now

America’s relations with China are and will remain a minefield, with domestic as well as international problems lying close to the surface for any Washington administration to step on.Relations are particularly sensitive now, and not that easy to read. China is a country with a population of 1.3 billion, led by an ambitious president, Xi Jinping, only part way through his mandate, with the idea that he could become as important to China as Mao Zedong was in the country’s modern history.China hol

Jan. 9, 2017

[Robert Park] Preventive strike: An atrocious proposition

Following North Korea’s string of nuclear and ballistic missile tests last year, various US national security figures have argued that, at some point in the near future, “preemptive” strikes on military targets within the North would be justified. In a 2000 book entitled “The America We Deserve,” President-elect Donald Trump boorishly expressed his readiness to launch a surgical strike against the North’s nuclear facilities declaring “Am I ready to bomb this reactor? You’re damned right.” On Jan

Jan. 9, 2017

[Chicago Tribune] Monstrous acts on video

The video depicts a level of cruelty that seems inconceivable. Yet it unfolds before your eyes: A cellphone video, posted for live consumption on Facebook, shows a mentally disabled young man from the Chicago suburbs with his mouth taped shut and his wrists bound as four people punch, cut and mock him.The story of this incident rapidly went global -- yet another act of inhumanity in a city that notoriously ended last year with 762 homicides.Walk through this slowly: Chicago police say the disabl

Jan. 9, 2017